Thursday 5 May 2011

Stockholm and Indian Jazz funk

I still have little time for miniatures, the newest reason is that my daughter Mari performed with her dancing class at the annual show of the Communal Culture School today, and there's been much to prepare. She dances jazz funk and her class should all be dressed as American Indians, sort of, and I, who can't sew a straight seem, had to make her a costume! Luckily we found an old brown blouse at a charity shop, she also had some old brown trousers which could be used and finally our large collection of beads came in handy! Here is the end result, with heavy stage makeup and darkened hair for the occasion. The blouse hangs freely, it's just tucked in on the sides a little bit by her arms.



The concert house was full (about 700 persons) and being the proud mother I am, I have to tell you her dance group got the longest and strongest applause from the audience. I tried to take photos during the show, but since there were no lights except on stage, and we weren't allowed to use the flash, the camera decided to go artistic instead (if you look very closely, you can see Mari dancing to the left).



This weekend we'll be visiting family, so rather than showing the miniscenes I don't have, I thought I'd show you some photos from our holiday in Stockholm, Sweden. With all you folks out there with a new or old Lundby Stockholm dollhouse, I think it's appropiate you should get to know the eponymic city a little bit better :-)



Gamla Stan (The Old Town) skyline







A closer look



Stora Torget (the old Main Square)





Old Town streetviews



Down to the left from here is a nice little shop with lots of miniatures.



For those who didn't get enough pomp and circumstance last Friday, here's the Royal Mounted Pageantry of Sweden.



And for those who miss miniatures in this post, here's a weaver in a bottle. Genius!
(Seen in one of the many antique shops)



One of Stockholm's many islands; Kastellholmen (Castle Island).
We went for a walk around that and its neighbouring island, Skeppsholmen (Ship Island)





At Moderna Museet (the Museum of Modern Arts) anything older than 50 years is considered garbage and thrown away.



While the Vasa ship, which capsized and sank the minute is was launched is rewarded with a museum of its own.



Torsten likes garden gnomes.



We left just in time to miss out on the blossoming of the cherrytrees in Kungsträdgården (The Royal Garden).

16 comments:

Daydreamer said...

Wow, Helene, what a great tour of your Lovely Old City! I Love to see old architecture of any sort... and Stockholm has a beautiful selection!
And your daughter's costume is just like the ones we make for our children over here..... leftover clothes and beads! LOL! Too bad your pictures of her dance didn't work out..... perhaps the school will let you take pictures another time!
And it is good to know you were on your way towards a miniatures shop! Thanks for sharing!

My Realitty said...

Brava! to Mari on her performance, and to her Mother for her costume. Tell her for me that Maria Tallchief was a native American dancer for Balanchine in the New York City Ballet.
I will look at your city photographs again more leisurely!
Another vacation to take! Cheers CM

Pubdoll said...

Thanks Betsy, it's not exactly our Old Town, since we were only visiting, but Stockholm is one of my favourite cities, so we keep coming back :-)

Luckily we could order a dvd from the event, which we did, and hopefully it's good quality. My camera just isn't good enough for fast movement, and especially not in the dark.

The miniatures i the shop were all 1:12 scale or larger, so there wasn't much I could buy there, but since the other mini shops in Stockholm were either closed for Easter or just vanished, I was happy to finally find one.

Pubdoll said...

Thanks Carol, as I said to Betsy, we keep coming back to Stockholm, the old reneissance parts of it are really beautiful, and everything is in walking distance. (If you like walking that is)

I must admit I was rather proud of the costume, mainly because I didn't think I would be able to make one, and also because so many of the other mums went with borrowed costumes from the dance school. I'm so used to be the bad mum in these things :-)
I'm bias, but Mari really shines on stage, she smiled like this through the whole performance and has great energy. I will tell her about Maria Tallchief, thanks for the info! My Mari is quite short, so she could be called Mari Not-So-Tall-chief :-)

rosanna said...

Helene, Mari is lovely, such a winning smile! and Stockolm is my dream in the drawer for next summer. May be we shall manage to go ther in July. I strongly wish that. Thanks for the pics, Rosanna

Unknown said...

This is exactly the way I would imagine Stockholm to look! And the weaver in the bottle, I love (and want) it. Mari is beautiful, you two have done Native Americans proud.

Pepper said...

Aww bless, Mari looks excellent in her costume. Such a cutie

Stockholm looks fabulous. A place I've always wanted to visit

Petra said...

your daughter is so beautiful and she looks as proud as her brother when he showed us the lego-museum you built. I love the picture of Mari dancing, would be a nice picture for the wall, really art!
The stockholm fotos are great too, but I'm glad I do not live in a museum, because I'm older than 50 years (garbage, ts!)
I love the road with the houses all in a yellow coloursheme, I think I've seen this before.
Everything very beautiful in this post, proud mother you are.

Patty said...

Helene, What an incredible costume you made for Mari! She looks so darling. Thank you so much for sharing the wonderful pictures of Stockholm! I have a cousin that lives there so it was interesting to see parts of the city that he maybe even visits!! Great photos!

Pubdoll said...

Thank you Rosanna, I hope you could go there next year instead so maybe we could meet :-) The next time we're bringing the children, so we saved Djurgården for then, where there's a big amusement park.

Pubdoll said...

Thanks Amy, that's a great compliment, I must admit I wasn't too sure how the costume ought to look, so I googled Indian costumes.
The weaver was very beautifully made, I took many pictures of the bottle to try to get all the perfect details as good as possible, but it was difficult since it was through both the shopwindow as well as the bottle glass!

Pubdoll said...

Thanks Pepper, they say she looks like me :-)
Yes Stockholm is great, one of my favourite cities!

Pubdoll said...

Thanks Oese, I know I could rely on you to take my jokes :-) But I was a bit shocked to see such wonderful statues displayed in such messy surroundings!

I think both daughter and mum were very proud that day :-) And I definitely will use the photo from the show as wall art in a miniature scene sometime, it really was a very lucky shot!

Pubdoll said...

Thanks Patty, Mari is almost as cute as your babies :-)
So nice you have a cousin in Stockholm, you really should visit him sometime! When we were there, there were mostly tourists in the old town, but some Swedes were to be found in the cafés and many were having picnic on the green grass on Skeppsholmen (Ship Island) and Kastellholmen (Castle Island).

Sans! said...

I don't believe it, Helene! Mari and I must be in the same dance ..ok maybe not, but I am performing in one where we will need Indian headdresses as well . :)So mummy, maybe you can make me one ? LOL

And I love your photo of Mari dancing but really darling, only a mother can see her daughter dancing in that one ..tee hee!

So many things to see and comment, that mind-boggling weaver in the bottle for one and the museum that throws away anything older than half a decade (they should start a sister museum, an "older" sister museum for their "garbage") and of course, all the pretty street view houses. It's like I visited Stockholm myself :). Thank you!

Pubdoll said...

Thank you Sans, so fun you're wearing an Indian headdress as well! For someone who can't sow I was very pleased that I managed to make one Indian outfit. Especially since many of the other girls borrowed their outfits from the dance school, but I don't think I will push my luck and try again :-) (And yes, I know you were joking)

And can you understand how they were able to put the weaver in hat bottle? Mindboggling describes it very well I think!

In hindsight I'm not completely sure the statures were garbish from Moderna Museeet, but maybe something from it's good neighbour, the Art School:-) But eather way they were oddly placed.